Games, Culture, and Spiritual Grift

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Spiritual merchandise is quite a world to explore. Stones that supposedly block 5G radiation, pants that circulate Chi energy, assorted crystals that are different from those other crystals, potions with luck vibrations, and so on. Plenty of people are ready to sell you all sorts of made-up solutions to your problems that your major problem will be poverty.

Now I’m not against spiritual merchandise per se, like any good mystic I have my own selection of tools and idols and the like. However some of this market gets grifty, with all sorts of claims, questionable testimonials, and even more questionable practices. There’s more than a few sales pitches dug up from the depths of social media that eevated my blood pressure.

A lot of this merchandise seems to be Conspiritual in nature, promising to sell you secrets hidden by them or to fight their influence. You know, that them. It seems things sell better when you think you’re screwing someone else over by buying it. People also seem to ask less questions when you can battle some conspiracy with a credit card charge.

Looking over all of this, something strikes me – a lot of this spiritual grift-merchandise sounds like something out of a role-playing game.

You know what I’m talking bout, games with treasures like The All-Seeing Sphere of Vormak or The Whirling Axe of The Moon. Games with Potions of Healing and Draughts of Clarity. Those specific treasures with special magical effects you’ve probably seen if not spent hundreds of hours using in various games.

These sound just like these 5G Blocking Crystals and Spell Kits For Invoking Loki At A Discount

And I wonder . . . is that an influence?

I mean by now standard RPG game tropes are pretty far integrated into culture. Dungeons and Dragons is a worldwide phenomena and a surprisingly fun and good movie. Computer games with plenty of lovingly-rendered magic items are available to play. Game tropes have worked their way into assorted fictions.

So now I find myself wondering, is all this grifty merch playing on the fact that we think in terms of magic items?

I really don’t know, but now I wish I had a way to analyze it to see if I was on to something or merely have been playing too many games. So if you have any insights, let me know.

If nothing else we can trade game recommendations . . .

–Xenofact

Duration of Sin And The Unbuilt Building

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At least weekly – often daily – I read about some scandal or another at a church or religions organization – usually, Christian, as I live in the United States. These are sometimes very highly-placed people, and the scandals are of an obvious nature. You know the kind, the person doing them had to know they were wrong. You really can’t keep doing the same horrible things for years without some idea you’re awful.

But so often the organizations go on. The followers follow. Someone goes to jail or get sued, but they often go on. The rest of us go on because it’s just another scandal, and we’re all used to them because tomorrow there will be another.

And I wonder, who thinks of the theological repercussions of this – again for the mostly-Christian audience in my country. Why did their God (god? “god?”) allow such horrible things, abuse, scandal? Why didn’t anyone do anything at supposedly holy organizations?

I don’t understand how they go on.

A long term series of horrible acts show whatever Church of organization is just . . . a group of people. There’s no holy structure, there’s no divine order, there’s not even an organization, just a kind of group of people like anything else.

It’s really a reputation of most people’s very orderly idea of a monotheistic universe and warrants some pretty deep personal and theological contemplation.

Of course people don’t want to admit that they trusted the wrong people, that the organization won’t protect them. The people in the organization don’t want it to end for their own reasons, from belief to they’d be out of a job. So everyone just sort of goes on, maybe fiddles with theology, and it all continues.

Then there’s another scandal, and another.

What’s strange is that every scandal has to eat away a little more faith that people have. Each one is just another sign maybe you chose wrong or believed wrong and the divine order you want is not something you access. But to give up on that? Well that’s too hard, even if there’s really nothing there anymore.

I wonder how weak some religious organizations are. How much their scandals and failures have been patched over in people’s minds so often they might be close to breaking. I wonder what happens when things break and what reforms. I wonder what has broken that I just didn’t notice.

And in the end, I think all those people lying to themselves, trying to persevere, not admitting to themselves how messed up their church is, they all have to hurt. What’s it like to have things so repudiated, to be so betrayed, what does it take to go on? How much of you is left after you lied to yourself enough?

I don’t understand.

I guess I wish I did understand. But what does scare me is maybe there’s nothing to understand. Maybe at some point you just go on no matter what because stopping means you’ll have to look back.

– Xenofact

Rethinking Our Bodies

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It takes little effort to look into most forms of mysticism and find something involving the body and the supernatural forces supposedly within. Energy channels and chakras, planetary correspondences and and vortices, many a form of mysticism treats the body as some supernatural system. Even if it’s not part of a given practice, someone has, is, or will add some spiritual-physical elements by shoehorning it in.

Now as any reader remotely familiar with me knows, as much as I find “blueprints” of such things useful, I’m also cautious about them. It’s too easy to turn a mystical practice into a checkbox of experiences one can merely hallucinate instead of experience. But when it comes to this “psychoanatomy” as I call it, I get the value and appeal even when it’s obvious bullshit.

Our bodies are part of our experience, part of reality, and they should be part of our spiritual practice. I mean you can kind of ignore them, but hunger, horniness, or a stubbed toe are going to bring you back to your body, like it or not.

A moment to look at your body quickly reveals how it reflects – and affects – your mental (dare I say even spiritual?) state. Tensions in your mind manifest in your body, emotional reactions are burned into your physical ones, and sense memories can flood you with recollections. It’s complicated,it’s complex, and not dealing with our bodies in spiritual practice just leaves out part of us.

Someone dealing with any form of psychoanatomy is at least being aware of our bodies and deconstructing and rethinking them. To think of the body as energy flows, or correspondences, or chakras can help see and even “take apart” old habits of thought, tension, and reaction. Sure, some of the techniques we use may be utter bullshit (and there’s plenty on the market) but rethinking your body is valuable.

It’s also something I think a lot of us really need to do. I get why people may buy some hack Quigong book or try to align their energy centers or use emotional support oil, or whatever. In my own meditative work I’ve become painfully aware of my tensions and how my body reflects deeper psychological processes. Sometimes you hurt, or feel uncomfortable, or suddenly have overwhelming musical reactions and you really want to deal with that.

It’s easy to fall into bullshit mysticism over the body. I’m sympathetic.

As spiritual practitioners, mystics, and the like, it’s also a reminder that people may have some real insights from their otherwise ill-informed practices. We shouldn’t just be sympathetic, but should help them out with healthier practices of bodily mysticism – or just recommendations for a good therapist. Even the crap may bring insights, and we can make sure those are channeled in a useful way.

– Xenofact